The United States expects that a nuclear disarmament pact with North Korea will advance quickly as Pyongyang takes actions to shut down its atomic programmes, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday.
Rice sees "hope for now rapid progress given the beginning we believe of the North Korean efforts to meet their initial action obligations," she said before talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon. The disarmament deal, under which Pyongyang would receive energy aid, security guarantees and better diplomatic standing in return for scrapping its nuclear arms programs, was stalled for weeks by a dispute over some $25 million in North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank at Washington's behest. "We agree that North Korea has ample reason and merit to give up its nuclear program and the other parties in six-party talks also believe that North Korea should make a strategic decision to give up the nuclear program," Song said.
IAEA TEAM HEADS FOR INSPECTION:
TOKYO: UN nuclear watchdog officials visiting North Korea travelled on Thursday to a reactor complex that the secretive state has promised to mothball under an aid-for-disarmament deal, Kyodo news agency reported. The visit to Yongbyon is the first by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials since Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in December 2002.
"This is not an inspection. We are here to negotiate and we will see where we are on Friday evening - what we have on the table at that time," IAEA nuclear safeguards director Olli Heinonen was quoted as saying as he left Pyongyang for the plant.
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